Pelosi and Dems Take Undeniable Ownership of Shutdown, Call Trump's Compromise 'Non-Starter'
President Donald Trump on Saturday proposed a much-anticipated compromise to end the government shutdown, but many Democrats have already rejected it.
In a fairly mannered and statesman-like address to the nation, Trump laid out the problems at the U.S.-Mexico border while extending an olive branch to liberals.
Offering to extend the controversial DACA program for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country by their parents, he urged Democrats to work with him to find a bipartisan solution to the ongoing government funding situation.
“Trump announced that he was prepared to back a three-year extension of protections for 700,000 immigrants who came to the country illegally as children and were shielded from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,” Fox News explained.
“This, in exchange for the $5.7 billion he has requested for a barrier on the southern border with Mexico,” the outlet continued.
The president offered a similar compromise on the Temporary Protected Status program, which would help migrants fleeing places like Honduras stay longer in the United States.
But even before Trump had appeared on live television to deliver his proposal, key Democrats were declaring that they wouldn’t accept the president’s compromise, essentially tossing out his olive branch.
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out ahead of the announcement to say the anticipated proposal comprised a ‘compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good-faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives,'” Fox stated.
“It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter,” Pelosi declared.
However, as the speaker of the House, she would likely be able to rally Democrat support for the compromise if she tried. It seems the liberal leader isn’t willing to give up a single inch of ground on the issue.
“For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports,” she complained.
Democrat Senator Dick Durbin sent a similar message, rejecting Trump’s offer even before he had appeared on television and blatantly rejecting the president’s offer for a bipartisan solution.
“I cannot support the proposed offer as reported and do not believe it can pass the Senate,” Durbin stated, claiming that liberals would only consider the proposal if Trump first signed a budget proposal that ended the partial shutdown. This would mean the president giving up his one bargaining chip with no guarantee of a solution.
While public opinion has been split down party lines on who is responsible for the recent government shutdown, it’s hard to deny that Democrats are now the ones standing in the way of an agreement.
Trump’s Saturday announcement showed that he is willing to concede key policies to Democrats, with his offer to extend DACA a particularly important move. But if Democrats aren’t able to meet him halfway, they now appear petty and childish as the shutdown — and the border crisis — drags on.
The fact that liberals didn’t even wait to listen to Trump’s address in good faith before bashing his proposal does not put them in a good light. Despite a media frenzy to make the president look like an extremist, it now appears to be Democrats like Pelosi and Durbin who are putting partisan politics ahead of the American people.
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